News Releases from Region 3

Civic Works to receive $300,000 EPA brownfields training grant

PHILADELPHIA (July 13, 2011) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced that Civic Works in Baltimore will receive a $300,000 Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training Grant to help train low-income residents for environmental jobs.Civic Works, a non-profit AmeriCorps program, will use the funding to train 144 students for entry-level environmental jobs helping to clean up abandoned and contaminated properties in Baltimore.

"EPA’s brownfields training grants demonstrate how creating jobs and protecting the environment can go hand-in-hand,” said Shawn M. Garvin, administrator for EPA’s mid-Atlantic region. “This funding will help ensure that brownfields cleanup projects in Baltimore have the trained workforce needed to revitalize contaminated properties and provide new job opportunities for community members."

This is the fifth EPA brownfields training grant awarded to Civic Works since 2000. Four other grants for $200,000 each were used to train more than 200 people and place more than 150 graduates in jobs.

Since 1998, EPA has awarded more than $35 million under the Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training Program. As of May 2011, more than 6,683 individuals have been trained through the program, and more than 4,400 have been placed in full-time employment in the environmental field with an average starting hourly wage of $14.65. The development of this green workforce will allow the trainees to develop skills that will make them competitive in the construction and redevelopment fields.

The EPA grant in Baltimore is one of 21 national grants announced this week. EPA’s brownfields program encourages redevelopment of America’s estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites. For more information on environmental workforce development and job training grants, visit: http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/job.htm .